


Undercurrent

by Greykite



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Drunkenness, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Tension, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greykite/pseuds/Greykite
Summary: A little bit about trust — and what is not said in words.
Relationships: Male Shepard/Liara T'Soni
Kudos: 6





	Undercurrent

**Author's Note:**

> Title is inspired by this fanmix of my own; https://8tracks.com/greykite/destinies-entwined

Each time he entered in her quarters in silence; patiently waited as Glyph scanned his palm and retina, matched the incoming impulses with the information in the database and then signalled to the double-lock door mechanism. It seemed he should be offended by such measures — an extraterritoriality that no one could, or even intended, to grant de jure; a gray area on his own ship. But Shepard never showed a sign. 

He passed Liara without touching, without holding his gaze on her a moment longer — no more that was necessary to navigate the space of the room. Otherwise Liara would have felt; even if her fingers danced rapidly on the virtual keyboard, and every minute she had to solve logic puzzles in her mind. Information and financial flows collided before her mind's eye, and then shallowed, hiding under the alluvial mass of irrelevant data, and somewhere in the depths of another array of data, a spring of secret agreement was breaking through — and streams of panic threatened to break the dam of common sense. And this is not to mention the banal, but ruthless statistics about the armies that need to be supplied — by propaganda as much as by medicines, thermal charges and dry rations.

But even through it all, she could hear the heavy sound of him, when sitting down on her bed — the bed that had belonged to another woman, a beautiful brunette with a sonorous name, a Cerberus operative, and Shepard's first assistant (the lines of the dossier reflected on her retina - no more than another block of data that needed to be used). But there was no use, time after time; there was only the rustle of him stretching out on this very bed with his hands behind his head, and there were goosebumps running down Liara’s back, because now — now he was definitely looking, thinking that she would not notice. But the movement of his eyeballs echoed somewhere under her skin — post-effects of melding that didn't gone even after... how much time had passed since their strange rendezvous on Hagalaz's orbit? Almost a year now. 

Liara should have been able to cope with this feeling — to give a deliberate, clear order to her own nervous system, just as she had done when using biotics during excavations or, more often, in combat, without the slightest hesitation at the thought of taking someone's life right now. 

In response to his direct request, she would have done just that — the asari society simply would not have survived without some preventive measures about such things. But the request remained unspoken - even nonexistent. One could only wonder how Shepard felt about it. 

A delicate balance - they didn't talk about… all of this, not since they left Mars.

_(A shot from a sniper rifle would shatter the Cerberus ' helmet shield — or break through a vulnerable joint of armor — a second after Liara had pinned the enemy to the ground with a blast of dark energy; and there was no need for a call or an order — they intercepted each other's movements from half-a-look, half-a-hint. As always; as it once was.)_

He didn't ask — so neither did she. 

There were other things to worry about. And even more so, now have such thing in the center of the circle of needs, not on the periphery of it, bypassing other areas, — (Liara, of course, listened human expression of "put in the center of the corner", but still couldn't get used to its logic) — was selfish stupidity, if not an almost crime. The war required complete dedication: everyone on the Normandy understood this. Why else would they be here at all, under Shepard's command, instead of someone else's?..

So she coordinated negotiations between disunited factions, parsed encrypted messages from a dozen different worlds and panicky intelligence reports, sending the resulting material to Tessia, on the Citadel, and on the Alliance fleet. There was no time to think about motives that were not relevant to the immediate tasks; the Galaxy was burning around Liara, and all the oceans of her homeworld would not be enough to extinguish this fire.

And then she would sit on the edge of the bed, always discreetly at a little distance, and, before going to sleep herself, would look at Shepard's face - almost motionless, as impenetrable as the faceplate of a black protective helmet. 

She stared at him with almost intense attention not the way one might look at someone in romantic books and movies (which Liara had never read or watched, thinking she was too serious for something like this), caressing with her eyes where her hands did not dare.

It was more like the first time when they met, without knowing who he was, when her mind was numb with hunger and disorientation, her tired gaze could hardly focus through the ripples of the holding static field, and it was not immediately possible to believe that someone had actually come for her to this Goddess-forsaken Terum. And he hadn't come — surprisingly — to make sure she was dead.

But now Shepard did not look like that soldier of an young alien race, whose dark, heavy eyes somehow rested, unblinking, on her face: on the immature marks, "freckles," as he called them later, with a half-incredulous smile, in his human language. Nor did he look like the focused, yet vacant-looking fugitive, armed only with duty and a vague idea — her own idea, however wild it might seem — at whose door she had knocked before landing on Ilos, summoning for it far more determination than was required on the battlefield.

He closed his eyes, then, before he kissed her. And maybe somewhere after that — somewhere between the moment when she closed her eyes too, half from embarrassment, half from not wanting to have an advantage over him (especially since sight was never one of the strongest senses for the asari, unlike races whose evolution took place in the savannas), and the moment when she opened her eyes again, filled with blackness, looking inward, not outward — she saw the same expression on his face. Or maybe she saw it in the interval between their melding and his restless movement on the bed (wide for one and narrow for two), which made her turn and stand up on her elbow. 

It was such expression — as if the shields, the medigel injector, and the omni-tool had suddenly failed, and there was nowhere to get the thermo-clips for the rifle, and the rifle itself was shattered. 

Such expression that should have been frightening when residing on the commander's face — but somehow didn't bother her half as much.

...Except that he was still not — not so much — her commander (and never had been, for that matter).

If he were her commanding officer, and just that, she would always know exactly what was needed of her, as a Normandy’s fighter, one of the tools — same as guns and other weapons — in his hand. 

So in the shuttle, before landing, or at short briefings afterward, when Shepard spoke to EDI (with her analytical capabilities) or to Garrus (with his combat experience) much more often than to anyone else, it was easier for her. Liara suspected - for him it was easier, too. 

But he kept coming here. 

There was no pattern in his visits. At least not externally. 

Sometimes they did exchange a few words before the Glyph gave her the soft signal to go to bed. More often she would start these conversations: would mention, as if to herself, only a little louder, a certain detail - sometimes it was so much easier for her, just as in her student days: say it, and the logical continuation will come by itself. Or she would quoted some letter - interesting, for sure (and she never made a mistake in this case) for him. And sometimes she would point out a pattern in the data in a low voice, as if she still doubted it, and he would respond in an even, low tone, agreeing or objecting.

But everything ended in silence, with the measured sound of breathing and vague warmth of presence.

"Thank you," Shepard said once as he left. 

Liara still couldn't figure out: why.

* * *  
In the middle of the night, her head began to ache — again and inappropriately; and when, after the third angry pressure of her hands on her eyes, the colored circles only grew brighter, Liara realized with all the ruthlessness that she would not be able to work.

Fortunately, the medical bay was located on the same deck — so there was no need to make any questionable attempts to operate the elevator by touch alone. 

Dr. Chakwas over the years has accumulated an impressive stock of alien drugs — literally on all occasions. She had even preserved a little of the quarian antibiotics that had been delivered from the Migrating Fleet about a year ago at Tali'zorah's special request (the incident on Hestrom; the Shadow Broker's infobases had included, not-so-miraculously, an almost complete — "almost" for obvious reasons — report).

Liara had prepared a polite apology in case the doctor had to be woken up: she could find the right tone even against a pressure of a migraine. She had to negotiate in the worst of circumstances; years of information trading had taught her a lot — though it not always were pleasant lessons.

But Dr. Chakwas, as it turned out, was awake. Motionless, with a strange concentration, she sat at the work table, where directly opposite of her was a dark bottle with a high neck and two — for some reason — glasses. However, the doctor was not drinking — she seemed to have been writing something on her personal tablet, marked on the back with the emblem of the Alliance medical service, just a few minutes ago, but then she was starting to think about something and was distracted.

The doctor looked up when she saw Liara at the entrance.

"Miss T'Soni." The strange humanish naming still brought a shadow of a smile to the corners of Liara’s mouth. The doctor must have never got rid of her first impression, when she had to recover a frightened and exhausted young archaeologist, almost four years ago. 

"Dr. Chakwas," Liara nodded. Accepting the rules of the game was another thing she has learned since starting out as an information broker. It is not always possible and not always reasonable to impose the image that you need on the counterparty; in fact, it is more useful to adjust to someone else's view of things. "I'm sorry, but I'm here as a patient." 

"Not that it was unexpected," Chakwas said, smiling. “You are too young to be so overworked. I would recommend a more balanced work-and-rest regime... If only I myself was able to be stuck to it.” The smile turned into a short, sad laugh. 

It didn't take long for Chakwas to find that she needed; a minute's rustle in the desk drawer, and then Liara took the still-unpacked blister with matte-red, slightly convex pills from doctor’s hand. 

She habitually squeezed one pill. Then, less decisively, a second. (Who knows how long their effect will last for?)

According to the instructions, they were supposed to be absorbed under the tongue. It was difficult to compare the effectiveness of it to an injection, but that would be an extreme measure. 

The doctor would probably want to add something about the dangers of drug abuse - and there would be nothing in those words that Liara would not have read on the extranet at this time. But the consequences, if there are any, will be dealt with later. 

After the war. 

"Take your time," Chakwas said instead. “Make sure that pills worked as they should. I hope the dose doesn't have to be increased any more.” Strangely, Liara didn't hear the disapproval in her tone. Just the same sadness as before. 

And she did just that. She sat down in the chair that the doctor had carefully pushed in her direction, not forgetting to nod her thanks again. 

(She didn't have the strength to smile anymore.) 

The darkness under her eyelids finally started to match the darkness of the living deck behind the transparent (one-side only) walls of medbay. The feeling persisted; it was good.

Liara took a deep breath and pressed her hands to her knees. 

"Thank you, doctor. Now I guess…”

"Miss T'Soni." 

Liara froze, waiting for the sentence to continue. She sank back into the chair from which she had started to rise.

"Miss T'Soni, I'd like to ask you something..." the doctor hesitated, as if she were approaching a delicate topic. “Have you ever wondered why the commander prefers to spend the night in your quarters?" 

Liara could only shake her head, both from surprise and ignorance.

It didn't occur to her to think of his presence as something inappropriate or embarrassing - even taking on the account... No, no matter what. Even if none of this had happened, or was only a dream: sharing a living space with someone else was perfectly natural for any asari. (She, however, needed privacy for her special work; otherwise she would not have insisted so much on a separate quarters.) 

Humans have different customs — she understood that. 

Humans valued their personal space almost as much as the krogans did — although they were much better at adjusting to its absence or limitations. (To better adapt to living on the first "Normandy", she read xeno-sociologists' research papers - with cross-section diagrams for population groups and curves for the level of relative aggressiveness.) 

Shepard, moreover, had the advantage of the captain — and Liara remembered his cabin-deck, spacious, lit by the fluorescence from the aquarium, but somehow slightly uncomfortable, as if uninhabited - despite even the collection of toy ships; as if they were placed here not out of desire — just because it was necessary.

It resembled the house where they settled with her mother, when Liara was transferred to a school with advanced program, and Benazia again for a dozen years had engaged in administrative, rather than diplomatic, work.

_("Did you live underwater?” Shepard was surprised when she mentioned it, just to say something while he poured them the wine with detached accuracy._

__

__

"Under the dome," she said absently. “It's not rational not to use continental shelves on Tessia." 

"I see —" he said, and then added, as if through the tension in his straight back and shoulders. “I didn't mean to impress you."

She lifted her brow.

"Or," he said without a smile, almost with no intonation at all; only the shadows under his eyes lay deep, like a hidden archaeological layer, "do you think I was given a choice about the setting here?"

She put her hand on the surface of the aquarium, but at his words she shuddered, almost pulling her fingers away.

She wanted, against all reason, to touch him, to take him by the shoulders, but instead she just took a deep breath.

"It's not about... fish.” Her fingers touched the cool glass. “Benezia was constantly traveling on business or attended the forums, and I had extra classes from morning to evening. I don't remember seeing our apartment in daylight.” 

She didn't even know why she was telling him this, though he listened intently, holding a glass in each hand, his head slightly tilted to his shoulder. "I just... didn't feel at home there. And there wasn't even a friend I could ask to spend the night with. So I would lie down in bed anyway, in silence, and watch the sea dwellers pass by the windows until I fell asleep. It helped, yes... but only after a long time."

"So that's how it is," he said. 

There was silence then. Shepard made no attempt to approach her with glasses; Liara stared into the soft orange light of the lamp and tried to guess the fishes she knew by their species’ names. 

"Do you know where one can order an automatic feeder?"

The question — just such a question, under such circumstances — stunned her. She turned back to him.

"What? For what?"

"They are dying.” Shepard shrugged. “Why would they needlessly die?"

_...She had actually left him the address of a store on Illium that she had visited herself, but hadn't decided to buy anything living, even though she had studied the assortment thoroughly.)_

Liara blinked, surfacing from the depth of memories.

Chakwas, meanwhile, took her long-drawn-out silence in her own way.

"Yes, I understand, miss T'Soni. Commander... He can do this to people: can create feeling that it is safer for you if you don’t approach him. Don't try to analyze. And when you look at miss Chambers, you may think it's true.” The doctor sighed. “I... I don't feel really sorry for her. She was an Illusive Man’s informer, just forged a consultant's diploma — I went through my channels to calm my conscience after… this happened. And still, she didn't have to killed herself.” 

Dr.Chakwas reached for the bottle — but pulled her fingers away from the neck and shook her head. 

Liara swallowed.

Dr. Chakwas was obviously drunk. If only in moderation, not to the point of losing her dignity, as the regulars of night clubs, but this only made the awkwardness worse. Liara should have apologized and left - as a good, honest person should. But...

But along with the awkwardness, there was a voice somewhere beneath her lower tentacles: the soft, insinuating inner voice of her alter ego, the Shadow Broker; voice of the profession that had brought Liara to this path. 

_You can't throw information around. Whichever way it came._

“Do you think there, at his place, might be... something left? " Liara asked, taking the conversation to a more practical level. And at the same time she was trying to settle down in her chair a little more freely, not so school-like, but still not crossing borders. "In the captain's cabin, I mean." 

This would have been her omission - although it was implied that the Alliance had combed the Normandy with a "frequent comb" during the investigation, as humans put it in words (specifically, Admiral Hackett, who had granted Liara access to the Martian archives). 

It would be insulting to think that Shepard's "thank you" was hiding the mockery; Liara should have been glad that asari didn't have the physiological reaction known among humans as “blush”. 

The doctor shook her head.

“But even so... Oh.” Dr.Chakwas shook the empty glass in her hand and looked at it up to the light — there was still a little liquid splashing at the bottom, if the half-light didn't deceive them. “You didn't see it. That's why you... Forgive my absent-mindedness. But you really didn't see him when he came back from Illium. I've been told by this young man who served in the Alliance before Cerberus, Mr. Taylor: he killed all the Eclipse mercenaries on his path that day. He didn’t even have mercy for a rookie, just a girl. After meeting with you, you understand?”

Chakwas' face looked like a broken medical secrecy. 

"I'm afraid I’m not." Liara chose her words carefully. 

Her memories of those days were like clear, abnormally focused shots, scattered, as if in an avant-garde movie. But there seemed to be nothing... significant among them. 

Retrospective: look, movement, intonation. 

_(A leaf of an ornamental plant, knocked off its fragile stem by a sharp gesture of the hand — stuck to a red-and-black glove: when Shepard handed her a tablet with a sum of collected data that he was not obliged to collect.)_

Chakwas sighed again, keeping the same strained, too-open gaze on Liara. This time her fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle; she shook it, tilted it toward the glass. 

“He didn't mention you, though. He didn't talk to anyone out of business, for that matter.” 

"Nor he did to me," Liara said, not quite sure what she was objecting to. 

Although he actually spoke... as usual; as she remembered from before. Even joked with her. She was angry in response, worried, happy — all this mixed cocktail of emotions, and there was no need to stop; if one does not ask, the other does not tell. She simply decided not to focus on the unimportant matters. She…

_(...shuddered in a half-turn when he called her name before returning to the ship, though she did not tremble even as she wrapped them both in a protective biotic sphere, not knowing if she would have the strength to hold it without much training._

__

__

"We need to focus on the mission." She remembered her own measured words - and the way his features froze in the wake of them, as if from a direct hit by a cryo-round, and his voice became dry as drawing paper. 

"Yes," he said thickly under his helmet. “I understand. I'll do whatever it takes.")

He had no obvious reason to agree. 

Then, of course, Liara thought for herself: the usefulness of contact was the hidden reason. Support in a sleepy, not-ready-for-storm galaxy. This assumption was the only rational one. It was necessary to approach matters coolly, without illusions. 

("It wouldn't hurt to have a good information broker on my side," he finally said, just before he left. "One who have... nothing to distract them. Just like I haven’t."

_It didn't matter that Liara wanted to ask what "nothing" Shepard meant, but she bit her cheek inside to keep herself from looking immature and stupid.)_

“When we were waiting for your signal to leave — I don't know what your business was, all this secrecy, of course.” The doctor hid the shape of her lips with a sip of wine, and it was hard to tell whether she was grinning or not. "The commander couldn't find a peace. He was restless, walked around the ship with his hands clasped behind his back. Garrus did not get out of the armory — claimed that the guns need additional calibration: in case of an unforeseen clash with enemy. I would have preferred not to be seen by the commander then, either.” Chakwas sighed. “But I'm a doctor. My duty is to be with the crew. And he…

He asked me what was wrong with him. He wanted to know if Cerberus was adding something to his food — or to the cabin air freshener. He was shaking Grant — our cook — literally by the shoulders... And asking him too, with that fixed face of his, and I knew the characteristics of his enhanced muscles and bones, I was ready to immediately run for the resuscitation kit, if something happens... But in fact, later I realized: he had never killed or injured anyone... accidentally. Only if he really wanted to. If he needed to do it.” She took a deep breath and reached — again — for the glass. She poured more wine this last time, it seemed. She took a deep breath — and then emptied the glass immediately. "I'm sorry, miss T'Soni. There are some things you can't get up the courage to do otherwise.” A sad, apologetic smile crossed Chakwas’ lips. 

_(...And then, on Hagalaz, after an unexpected and long-awaited victory, he didn't intertwine their fingers, didn't lean in for a kiss - he grabbed her wrist and hugged her, pulling her towards him sharply, as if he was doing a combat grip: with such tension, as if expecting for her reaction to be a biotic attack, not less. And she stood there, dazed, her tears still wet, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and only a minute later did she lock her hands on his back. And then he sighed — the way air escapes from a balloon that's collapsed between the palms of the hands.)_

“What could I say to him? That he was afraid of losing someone he couldn't think he found? That he must be jealous, but doesn't even know what the feeling is called?” Chakwas shook her head. "I'm not a psychologist, miss T'Soni. I'm just a military physician."

"But why are you telling me now?.." Liara's own voice suddenly sounded hoarse.

The doctor's gaze flicked for a moment to the empty bottle, and Liara blinked in surprise, noting the brand name on the neck; it was definitely not a fake. One of the best export Asari wines.

"Today - yesterday already - was the anniversary. He saved us from there, you know?"

And how she - an information broker, to think of it! — did not notice that Dr. Chakwas has a taste for expensive, high-quality alcohol?.. For some reason, that was the clearest thought in Liara's mind right now. 

Chakwas went on without waiting for Liara to respond, as if her mind was jumping from one to the other at random:

"When Anderson gave him command of the ship…" Her gaze leaped over Liara's shoulder, as if the doctor could see something in the past through the glass. "I was told — advised to write the application for transfer. Threatened with professional burn-out — in the best case. After Jenkins... after Eden Prime, I really thought about it. And I saw how he treated Alenko... and Sergeant Williams, if you think about it. If to think of it, he treated her almost worse — and no, miss T'Soni, don't have wrong thoughts: I'm not talking about the bed." 

Liara understood — or at least told herself that she understood - Dr. Chakwas' condition. She had seen similar cases, though not so close. 

Still, Liara almost lost her patience with her words. A little. But dangerously close.

Asari had no specific concept of "sexual fidelity" as such. It was almost a nonsense in the society where melding was the basis of all relationships, romantic or not; there were rules, of course — religious and ethical — but no clear boundary separating one case of melding from the others. 

It would be strange to think that Shepard, who was as familiar with alien cultures as a soldier of his rank could be, had not found out this; and she herself should not have expected more from Shepard than he expected from her. That was fair. 

"Why do you, all of you, keep implying that the bedding itself is so important?" Liara could only hope that some involuntary face expression had not betrayed her; or at least remained unnoticed in the gloom. Darkening or, on the contrary, outflow of blood from the head tentacles did not belong to the signs that humans could understand easily. "And... I would have known about Ashley. Whether this is the case."

"Good," the doctor sighed. "Sorry. These are all your... specifics. I forget about them. Just as I, as a doctor, find it hard to believe that one can be cruel in saving someone. And vice versa."

In fact, that wasn't the reason why Liara _knew_. Not because of melding. Or, rather — she knew something else: what the doctor was trying to say. 

Shepard discussed this with her — in the same detached, almost casual tone as many other things. He ask her advice on what to do — not asking, but stating his view as if it were a whole, but then turning to her as if she could find an inconspicuous crack in that wholeness and hit it with a single word. 

"But anyway, I…" the doctor continued. "I became attached to them. To the crew. To Jeff. To the ship itself. And then, when that first Normandy was gone, it was as if we were all cursed." She snorted vaguely. "Adams was trying to get something done... I was too proud. You know, this is also transmitted. Feeling that you are a part of the something big - like a lymphocyte in the immune system. Well, Cerberus offered good money." Chakwas shrugged. "And the possibility of going back into space, of course." Let it be suicide, I thought then, looking into Shepard's eyes again. But at least I can die with good wine in my blood. What do I have to lose? I don't even have a family. 

But I didn't die. He saved us. Saved everyone." She swept the space with her hand. "Maybe as tools. As details of a large plan. It's not for me to judge.  
But he, with his personal file, bought me a bottle of Serrice Ice the other day. Without reminders. That's all I know, miss T'Soni." The doctor looked up. "Maybe I'm wrong. However, you…"

It was as if something had broken behind Liara's back, at the back of Her head, with a thin, sharp tinkle like a crystal bell. 

It was as if something had broken in her throat at the same time.

"No, doctor. I was never afraid of him.” 

(“More precisely, I was afraid of something else than him.")

She was afraid of her own attachment, unreasonable, disproportionate attachment to a man who had never told her about his feelings.

More precisely, he did not speak about it as it would be customary, correct, acceptable.

Liara suddenly remembered what she had heard from Shepard once, in her sleep, when she had stretched herself and pressed her back against him, after a short breath that was like a drawn monomolecular blade. 

The air that escaped from his nostrils touched a sensitive area at the base of her tentacles, and he muttered, "Why don't I want to kill you?"

His voice, always clear and even - to the point where it seemed completely devoid of emotion - sounded almost puzzled. 

"Why I…" - he began to repeat, and fell asleep again. 

She thought about it as she looked at Dr. Chakwas. 

The corners of her mouth twitched, not forming a smile, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to smile or to cry.

Chakwas tilted her head to her shoulder, not looking away. The corners of her mouth twitched in response, as melancholy and drunken as ever, but with a kind of amused surprise. 

"You seem to have answered my question just now, miss T'Soni. Although I didn't mean exactly that, but... this is not a list of complications, where there are a limited number of options. And I'm really not a psychologist."

"But you have a good taste for wine," Liara said. 

"If you want to have a drink with an old woman, miss T'Soni," Chakwas said, raising her empty glass in a sort of salute, " I'm always glad to see you. In my spare time, of course. And provided that the alcohol is off you - my salary allows such pleasures only once a year."

"Of course. I think you deserve it, doctor." Liara's voice, she thought, was more sincere than it had been for all previous conversation

* *  
He wasn't in her cabin that night, or it might have been different.

(And she, a sensible, cool-headed asari with a third-full-cycle degree, stubbornly resisted the idea that in his presence the migraine had never really hit her - just maybe tried and retreated after a few dark minutes.)

But when Liara returned, the signal on the door was flashing yellow at three-second intervals, and the Glyph on duty at the entrance immediately transferred data to her omni-tool before Liara could focus her eyes on her bed. 

Was he surprised to find her cabin empty?

Or he guessed correctly, understood the reason why she can be absent?

Possible. Most likely - if he still remained, in the end, here. 

_"It's easier for him to walk in unannounced in the middle of the night than to say that he trusts you."_

Liara shook her head at the thought; a half-smile flickered and disappeared at the corners of her mouth. 

She didn't sit back down at the terminal, just typed in the code command that triggered the automatic mail processing algorithm, and flipped through the scheduler for the morning of the next standard day; the program itself picked up auto-alerts for unfinished tasks. 

With a gesture of her hand, telling the Glyph to stay by the door — the Glyph blinked and switched to watch-and-protect mode - Liara approached the bed, walking carefully and almost silently. Noticing this time not only the presence of Shepard, but also how she had lived in this place in just a couple of human months — trying to make it as much her own as possible in wartime: not just with posters on the walls and half-empty bookshelves. Even picked up an air freshener on its own; not the generic mint that was everywhere - that was in Shepard's own cabin.

He was sleeping almost in the middle of the bed, in his usual position: on his back, but with his head turned to one side and both arms slightly bent at the elbows. 

Next to him laid a tablet with some data: screen up. Liara, who had learned over the years to value information and its confidentiality (and hadn't the University of Tessia, with its internal conflicts and its desire not to concede scientific primacy to anyone, prepared her for this?), would never allow herself such a thing. 

However, she would have underestimated him assuming that the device did not have a password of sufficient complexity. 

("Can you encrypt the data so that I can't hack it?" This was another question from him, asked with detached curiosity during their... not quite conversations.)

Liara sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the soft, springy material beneath her. 

_(Before the Normandy, Liara had never seen humans so close, and this rudimentary fur on their heads intrigued her — so one day, forgetting herself, she simply reached for Shepard’s head with her open palm. He froze at the touch, just as he had paused before delivering a split-second blow._

__

__

Then he took a deep breath.

And instead of pushing her hand aside, he just slowly disengaged it from his head. He caught her palm halfway — not painfully, but palpably, and put it on his shoulder.

" I don't like it. Touching", he said. "Even my mother is used to that." 

Then he squeezed her fingers a little. As if apologizing. At the very least, he took into account the force exerted in this movement — as in almost every movement that directly concerned her, Liara.

"And I'd like you to know," he added. "In order to be honest. It was…"

"Unpleasant?" she asked, slightly pressing her hand to the fabric of his uniform as if to return the apologizing gesture.

He looked over her shoulder. It seemed a few seconds — a beat or two of her heart — before they just stood there, in the dim corner of the living deck.

_"No," he said at last. "Not unpleasant. Not at all”.)_

Perhaps she should have said something. He might even heard her — and who was she to say that the residual effects of melding were only applying for the asari, not for humans?.. 

But all the words seemed to be like the foam of the surf, white wisps above the undercurrent: there was something much more permanent than they were. 

So she simply repeated the old gesture — put her hand in the hair that had grown over the past couple of months on his temples and ran her fingers through it without touching the skin. 

Then her hand slid over his shoulder and down to the part of his arm that wasn't covered by the rolled-up sleeve of his uniform shirt. His skin was always a little colder than hers, all because of the same evolutionary differences, but it quickly stopped scaring her. 

Liara opened Shepard's clenched hand — slowly, carefully, trying not to disturb him - and placed her own hand exactly on top of it: wrist to wrist. 

Then she lay down beside him and placed her other hand on his arm.

Without waking up, he only tightened his grip on her fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation of my own fanfic from Russian.
> 
> If there is any error in English grammar or punctuation, please, comment on it.


End file.
